Daily Archives: February 1, 2013

Windows 8 Market Share – According to an article in ZDNet Tech Today, the market share for desktop PCs remains low compared to Windows XP & Windows 7. As of the first of January, Windows 8 had a 2.26% share of the market – ahead of Apple’s Mac OS X 10.7 or OS X 10.6 but slightly less than OS X 10.8 – which is rather small when you compare it to Windows XP’s 39.51 % and Win 7’s 44.48%. It should be noted that Post-PC devices like tablets have shown a significant rise in popularity and this has impacted the share of desktops belonging to Windows 8. Nonetheless Win 8 is selling fairly well – all things considered – and continues to gain momentum. What sales will do in January remains to be seen. On the consumer front, Xmas is now behind us so the figures for January may not be spectacular. Enterprise sales maypick up now that 2013 is here but it is worth keeping in mind that surveys back in the 4th Quarter of 2012 indicated that there was no great rush to move to Windows 8. Many companies are still moving to Win 7 and some plan to wait until Win 8’s successor appears to see if it is any more promising than Windows 8. Read all about it on ZDNet.

[stextbox id=”Question” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″ mleft=”10″]Do you plan to move to Windows 8 this year? Tell Dr. Data all about it.[/stextbox]Windows App Numbers Fall Short – Way back in October of 2012, Redmond predicted that there would be 100,000 apps available in the Windows Store within 90 days after the launch of Win 8. Well, 3 months later, the count as of January 8th, 2013 was only 26,643; not even half of what was predicted. The low market share held by Win 8 may account for some of the reluctance shown by 3rd party developers to start coding for the new platform but 26,643 is a disappointment by almost any standard. Read all about it on Tech Republic.

We’ve all had to deal with them in some way at one time or another. The CAPTCHA; a brave attempt to prevent spam-bots from filling out things like the contact form on your website and sending you e-mails telling you about cheap Viagra, Nigerian Princes seeking to recover their fortune and busty blond bimbos who have been oh so lonely and are looking for a man just like you in order to have a meaningful, fulfilling relationship and/or a good time.

[stextbox id=”Information” float=”true” align=”right” width=”150″ mleft=”5″]Wikipaedia has an excellent article on CAPTCHAS. [/stextbox]Though they are there on the front lines of spam defense, they more often frustrate than protect. How many times have you filled out a web form only to be baffled by the distorted letters and numbers you are required to read and enter before you hit “Submit”. Is that a “1” or an “L”, an “O” or a “Q”, an “R” or a “K”? You give it your best guess and click the “Submit” button only to be told that what you entered is incorrect and are then redirected to an empty copy of the form that you’ll have to fill out again. Not only are they driving you mad but there are serious questions as to their efficacy.

The hey-day of the CAPTCHA may be over. Ticketmaster is dropping them in favour of entering common phrases or answering things like multiple choice questions. A New York based outfit named Solve Media claims that it takes the user half the time to comply with the new approach than it did to try and decode a CAPTCHA. Solve Media also believes that this method is better at blocking bots than the old way which often proved quite successful at blocking humans.